Behold The Majesty Of The Durham 2500 Robot

A long time time ago, my dad taught banjo lessons to a British lady named Kay. She was an elderly lady who had a zest for new challenges. She was in her seventies when she was learning the instrument and she was incredibly nice. “Camptown Races” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” were in her repertoire and for a beginner, she caught on pretty well.

Kay was like an honorary grandmother to us. She was always at our family parties, at our house on the river, which were pretty raucous affairs. I think she was at my first communion party. They usually started with boating and ended with music led by my dad and joined by his brothers and Kay would join in on the banjo! Kay attended my birthday party at McDonald’s and she brought me a Durham 2500 Robot. He shuffle walks while swinging his arms, and his small cyclops eye flickers as does his large chest light.

There’s three variations of this guy; all gray, all silver/chrome, and a combination of blue arms and legs, with red feet and head. That’s the one I have. There’s another variation with a Transformer like head on the robot body. This is referred to as Robot UFO.

The robot has served as both hero and villain in the adventures with my action figures and such. Heck, he even drove our cats crazy! Blinking and whirring is better than catnip!

The Durham 2500 is a very well liked robot (in all of his versions) in the collecting community. Some prefer the all silver or gray versions and some prefer the red and blue guy. I dig the one I have. My robot has seen some better days. A couple of decades ago, a rubber snake I had, melted on him and a few other things, while being stored in our garage loft. His electronics no longer work, and his back panel is missing, but I have a strategy to fix that. If only I could teach him banjo.